


Avengers Effect

by CapsicleRogers



Series: Avengers Effect [1]
Category: Captain America, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, Mass Effect
Genre: Avengers Effect, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mass Effect/Avengers Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapsicleRogers/pseuds/CapsicleRogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is the best of the best when it comes to the Systems Alliance, and even the Council is beginning to recognize it. While on a mission to test his qualifications as a Spectre, however, Steve and his team stumble upon a crisis the likes of which will affect the entire galaxy. Steve must stop this new menace while both proving his worthiness as a Spectre and finding a team that's capable of protecting the galaxy. He didn't count on losing the Council's support, or on creating a team made up of some of the strangest people in the Citadel: a forlorn leader, a disillusioned businessman, an orphan genius, an exiled scientist, and his best friends in the whole universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So it's finally started, the Avengers Effect Crossover that I've been trying to work out for ages. I have most of the series figured out (in 3 parts, unless I figure out more), but not all the nitty gritty details, so the rating and characters may change.  
> And the relationships/couples will definitely change as the story progresses. Sorry, loyal ship followers! I will try to keep the tags updated as they happen!

“He’s waking, maintain watch on those vitals.”

Steve Rogers pressed his eyelids closed as tightly as he could, clearing the haze of sleep and anaesthetics before opening them to stare blearily at the white ceiling of what was clearly a hospital. His whole body throbbed with the familiar ache of having been battered and tossed around by some bully or another, and Steve briefly wondered how _bad_ for him to not remember the incident. But that didn’t even seem right, because Steve never woke in a hospital. Mindoir as a colony barely even had a doctor much less a viable medical center, and he normally woke in Bucky’s hovel of a home after the older boy found and rescued him.

Something beyond the location isn’t quite right, either. The ache Steve was feeling _was_ familiar, but it was abnormally dull, really just a quiet nuisance. Still, it wasn’t _really_ anything Steve hadn’t handled before and he moved to sit up to try to figure out his situation. He couldn’t sit up, however, so Steve tried a little harder. His muscles must have been a little more tired than he thought, because his body was so heavy it almost felt like restraints holding him down.

“Easy there, Private Rogers, we’re not certain how stable you are,” a voice said from his side, and Steve turned his head to see who was speaking to him. There was a woman in a lab coat, looking straight down at him and patting his shoulder gently, and he allowed the woman to flatten him back on the bed.

“I’m not – I never joined – I,” he tried to argue, looking at her emploringly. He immediately picked up on the title the doctor had used, in part because he’d never been given the chance to have a title at all; Bucky had gone off weilding his title with pride, leaving Steve lonely and powerless back on their colony. They clearly weren’t there now, as he previously suspected, if people were confusing _him_ with somebody who might be military bound. Everybody had known when the recruits had rejected him, and every boy in town had made sure to remind him as he passed down the roads since.

“On the contrary, Private,” another voice sounded from his other side, so unfamiliar in its tone that Steve whipped his head to see who was speaking. Standing on the other side of his bed was another doctor, this one a Salarian. Steve had never seen one before, because other species were rare in the human colonies, but there was no mistaking the physique of one of the council species. This Salarian seemed to be regarding him with great amusement: there was a quirk stretched on thin lips and the insect-like eyes were squinted with the rise of bony cheeks.  The rapid, higher pitched voice suddenly made sense, too: the Salarians really were as thin as they were often rumored to be, with tiny mouths and throats and even less lung capacity, if you could call them lungs. Steve suspected he could wrap his fingers around the alien doctor’s neck in the same way one might wrap his fingers around his wrist. “On the contrary,” the doctor repeated, “You’ve been enlisted pending the success of this operation, which I might conclude is resoundingly successful. I imagine it might take a little bit of time for your mind to fully recover; it has been put under a lot of stress. But I wouldn’t worry about it, since all tests so far have proved an astonishing healing rate for a human, you really should be quite proud of yourself.”

Steve blinked blankly at the Salarian. The rapid speech patterns were almost impossible to understand, not to mention the ridiculous nonsense that the doctor was spouting. Recovery? Him joining the military? An operation? Steve’s confusion must have been apparent on his face because both the Salarian and the woman chuckled.

“Forgive my rush, let us take this a bit slower,” the Salarian said. “I am Doctor Erskine. We spoke a week ago after pirates attacked Mindoir and nearly destroyed your colony. You very bravely aided in the escape of a number of civilians and were picked up by the Alliance not a day later. You were offered and agreed to the super solider serum following, provided it allowed you access to the Alliance’s military forces. I daresay, Private, that they took one look at you and immediately accepted the terms.”

Steve looked down at himself then, and understood what the Salarian – Doctor Erskine – meant. His body was different, so much so that it sort of explained why he had felt so off when he woke. Everything about him was larger: he was taller, broader, more muscled than he had ever dared dream. Automatically, Steve drew his hands up to his face to grip his head, and even those were massive and foreign-feeling compared to the bony strings they used to be. Now that he was paying attention, through the dull ache everything felt bulkier, meatier.

Steve didn’t remember agreeing to have any sort of serum, mostly because the vaccines he’d opted for years ago usually just made him feel sicker than if he had passed. How strange that he had agreed to this one, even given the results? Still, for a chance to join the Alliance and perhaps join Bucky out in the space lines, Steve would agree to the chance again.

“I know this must be strange, but if you’ll just give your mind a moment to catch up you’ll find everything is in proper order,” Dr. Erskine continued, and it seemed that was all the Salarian was willing to speak on the subject because he nodded at the doctor on Steve’s other side and the two continued taking his vitals. Steve allowed himself to be manhandled – there was no telling what sort of force was behind the new, beefier him – and tried desperately to draw on the memories the doctor was certain he would regain. He flexed his hand testingly as the woman doctor – she was human, and her nametag read _Beth_ when he got a good look at her – pressed a few of the muscles in his arm, and was alarmed again to find that  even she seemed surprised by the power there.

It was nightfall when the promised memories finally returned to him, in such a wave that it nearly knocked Steve from his hospital bed and caused him to upturn the medical stand that had been sitting next to him. He had been in sich a heavy sleep that it was almost as though he was dreaming, but the images had been so vivid that there was no chance they were anything but his returning memories.

 

_“They’re – they’re coming, and at this rate there’s nothing to stop them!” Steve looked up, terrified, as his neighbor passed by the small pod he and Bucky called a home. They were orphans, most of those on Mindoir, doing their best to work the ores found in the soil and to establish a colony that would eventually garner the attention of the larger colonies. So far Mindoir had done little to put itself on the map: offer a meager sum of iron and zinc ores to the benefit of the Alliance, serve as a qualified home for lost children, create a small settlement that could sometimes be considered a home._

_Lately, though, a number of the men had moved forward and joined the Alliance, at the behest of Ambassador Udina. They needed men, he claimed, and they heard it every night on the holoscreens that the shippers and businessmen sometimes provided. Bucky had joined them just last month, and Steve had tried but had been rejected – many times. All that remained, at this point, were the men and women who couldn’t go off but could still work the quarry fields and care for the colony. Steve suspected this might be the draw of the sudden wave of pirates, fallen so quickly upon them it was almost like a wave in the night._

_“Where are they coming from?” Steve called, trying to see his neighbor in the darkness but failing. The woman had already disappeared into the darkness of the alleys behind the pods. But as he stepped out of his own pod it was obvious – the entire eastern sector was ablaze, with shouts and debris lost to the shadows of the surrounding darkness. Steve let out a curse and ran inside only to grab his coat before throwing it on and stepping onto the main road._

_The woman had been shouting loud enough that it probably had alerted most of their other neighbors, but Steve took it upon himself to begin knocking on doors to ensure their safety. There were too few foremen left after the Alliance waves had passed through, too few leaders who could properly ensure everybody made it to safety. Steve knew the ins and outs of the colony streets better than many; he could help the escape plans where there was no other guidance. And judging by the distance of the fires, there was still plenty of time to get his sector clear before the pirate ships landed there._

_“Mrs. Norman?” he tried on the first door, although the explosion of what was probably the power generator for the east sector nearly muffled his shout, “Mrs. Norman if you’re in there we need to move to the emergency pods!” he tried again. This time an elderly woman opened the door, looking so bewildered that Steve actually hoped he was able to get her out._

_“No, no, Mr. Rogers, I’m sure if we just lock up properly everything will blow past – “ the old woman tried, but Steve shook his head forcefully._

_“Mrs. Norman, the east sector is gone and it seems to be headed this way. I’d suggest you grab everything you can’t do without and head for the pods immediately. We can only hope somebody’s already there and called for help.”_

_Mrs. Norman looked startled to have been interrupted by such a small man, but she nodded finally and moved into the pod to collect her valuables. Steve only hesitated a moment more before moving to the next pod, which had already been thoroughly abandoned._

_He’d swept the entire quad by the time the fires grew near enough to warrant alarm, and with a satisfied wheeze of his overworked lungs, Steve himself headed for the emergency pods that were located just a few quadrants to their north. So far everything seemed quiet but he knew better than to think that pirates couldn’t drop out of the surrounding dark and silent spaces. He and Bucky had studied piratry, back when they were just children with wild dreams of leaving the colony, and he knew how they often worked._

_And his suspicions weren’t unfounded, as he came upon couple of men just a hundred metres from the pods. But they weren’t in hiding and they weren’t in stealth anymore, mostly because they had already cornered a small collection of colonists surely on their way to the pods. Steve’s hands knotted into fists as he watched one of the pirates brand an alien weapon at one of the older children before shoving the boy to the ground. It was hardly fair as it was, picking on colonists that were barely armed, much less ones that we travelling with children. And humans had it rough enough in these parts of the galaxy without other humans out making it worse._

_Steve let out an angry huff through his nose before he decided that there was no other choice in this matter. Angrilly, he scooped up the heaviest rock he could lift and made his way towards the pirates, doing his best without getting caught. This of course meant he couldn’t get too close because while he’d studied it, stealth had never been his forte, but he had to get close enough to lob a healthy throw too. He eventually found himself maybe a metre  from the men and shaking his head vigorously at the children who looked on hopefully. He’d have to act before one of them gave him away, and so he lifted the rock as best as he could and hauled it high enough to hit the nearest pirate right in the back of the head._

_Luck was on Steve’s side, because the pirate dropped heavily without firing a single shot. His partner, however, was startled into turning around and caught eyes with Steve before letting out an angry cry and charging him. Steve only barely managed to jump out of the way before the man tackled him, and he struggled to turn so that he could back on his feet._

_“Run!” he shouted desperately to the crowd behind him as he finally got his footing, standing between them and the recovering pirate. He risked a glance to the fallen man, but he was clearly unconscious, so Steve focused his attention on the man before him._

_This pirate scowled, putting away the assault rifle he had been waving at the colonists to fight Steve hand-to-hand. Steve was admittedly a little relieved, because while he still didn’t stand much of a chance against this guy’s fists, he stood a better chance than against his firearms._

_“Had to play hero, didn’t you, colonist?” the pirate snarled, a sneer marring his face. Steve only scowled further and croutched into a fighting position. He might not be able to fight well, but Bucky had taught him at least a few pointers._

_“At least I’m not cheating others out of their hard-earned living!” Steve replied sharply, raising his fists. He moved forward to throw a punch just as the pirate did, and they caught each other but Steve was sent spinning to the ground. He coughed and pressed a hand to his now-aching jaw, but stood to face the man he had just barely knicked. The pirate was looking more eager to fight now, having tasted Steve’s strength. But Steve wasn’t deterred, and faced the man with renewed vigor._

_It was maybe five similar lunges before Steve was steadily bleeding out his nose and wiping his mouth. But he prided himself on his perseverance, and suspected he might yet wear the other man out. If he could get his hands on one of the pirate’s weapons he would undoubtfully be in the clear but had so far been unsuccessful._

_“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” the pirate told him finally, landing another punch only to watch Steve struggle back to his feet. The smaller man only grinned at him and wiped more blood, his feet unsteady. Finally having had it, the pirate drew the small hand pistol and kicked at his companion. “We’re going to lose those collies if I let you keep us here any longer.”_

_“I could keep you here all day,” Steve argued, although with the pistol free he was not feeling as confident. But he would do anything to keep this group of pirates from following the group he had just rescued._

_“Good thing you won’t have to,” they both heard, and Steve whirled around towards the sound. There were men behind him – at least five of them, all heavily armed with assault rifles or shotguns. Steve unconsciously ducked as they all took aim, although it quickly became clear that they were aimed at the pirate and his slowly rousing companion. Steve let out a breath of relief as he recognized the Alliance logo on the breast of their armor, and stayed in his place as they rounded up the two criminals._

_The most heavily decorated of the men stepped towards Steve just as the the pirates and a few of the men disappeared around the sector’s pods, and stuck his hand out for Steve to grab. He did so, allowing himself to be righted and inspected._

_“First Lieutenant Phillips,” the man finally said, putting his hand back out for Steve to shake, which he gratefully did. “Feels like we’ve been tailing that ship halfway across the galaxy by now. Didn’t expect them to stop off here, but I’m glad we checked. Got an emergency signal, and it looks like we got here just in time.”_

_“Most of the colonists were headed for the emergency pods. Somebody probably tripped the SOS from there,” Steve replied, dropping his hand sheepishly. “We’re just quarrymen here, there’s no telling what they were after,” he continued._

_“They’re after anything they can get,” the First Lieutenant replied. “Stopped trying to figure it out months ago. That was a brace thing we saw you do there, though, civilian. You ever thought about joining the Alliance?” The look the First Lieutenant was giving Steve was undeciferable, but he suspected it may be something like mocking. He shook his head, deciding that explaining his_ multiple _failed attempts to a ranked officer like the First Lieutenant was probably a bad idea._

_“Would you like to?” First Lieutenant Phillips continued, “I mean, not like_ that _, but we’re been working on a new program and you might just be right up their alley.”_

_Steve knotted his eyebrows, not sure what First Lieutenant Phillips meant. Was he offering Steve a real chance to join the Alliance?_

 

“Nightmares?” Steve opened his eyes to see Dr. Erskine in the chair next to him. The Salarian was doing something on a tablet held between his two strange hands, but Steve couldn’t tell what.

“No,” he replied, “Just remembering.” The doctor made an affirmative noise but didn’t look up.

“Your vitals spiked, so we thought that might be what was happening. I would have sent a nurse but I thought you might prefer a familiar face.”

From what he’d heard of Salarians, the doctor’s interest was probably much more scientific but Steve didn’t feel like prying. His mind and body still felt raw from the memories and he instead took the quiet calm of the nearly empty room to focus on his breathing and calm his nerves. Even with the memories crisp and new, everything still made such little sense. “Doctor Erskine, why did you choose me for this project?” he asked carefully, looking the doctor in the eyes and searching for what he hoped was the true answer. The Salarian watched him for a moment before deciding to speak.

“The Alliance has stepped up in a major force with the Citadel and all over the galaxy, Private. Rogue attacks have become increasingly erratic, and the Alliance has been doing its part to quell those, even if that means primarily protecting human colonies. But what it also means is that the Alliance is looking for qualified soldiers every day, and for a better chance to work with the Council and the Citadel. You’ve heard the Ambassador’s rousing speeches encouraging Earth and the colonies’ best men to step forward. He’s trying to gather all the best men to the Alliance so that he can prove humankind’s worthiness to the Council. And when he heard about my research – about the serum – he called on me to perfect it to fit your species. Why limit yourself, after all, to those who are able bodied when you can adapt even those who are not physically capable? I agreed, since the serum has proven to work best for humans so far anyway, and it meant more Council support for my research. I didn’t know the results were going to be so overwheming – I can’t wait to get these results to the Council, they’re going to be stumbling over themselves for an interspecies serum – ”

“Yes,” Steve said, cutting off the doctor before he could continue, “But that doesn’t really explain why you chose me specifically.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dr. Erskine asked, giving Steve the most incredulous look. “Even as puny a human specimen as you were, you were willing to fight in the name of the civilians and children of your tiny planet even despite the danger presented to your person. If there were any human more worthy a personality, your Admirals would still be looking. As it stands, the decision was unanimous in your favor, even from the Council.”

Under the Salarian’s hard stare, Steve turned away and watched his hands instead. “You don’t say,” he said numbly, still trying to understand. Dr. Erskine sighed and finally placed a pronged hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve looked up to him, and was surprised to find what he supposed was a comforting smile.

“You must remember, Private Rogers. They chose a human subject for a reason. The Council could have chosen any species, any individual and they chose _you._ Don’t ever forget that.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steve Rogers stared at his hands, contemplating their appearance for probably the sixth time in as many hours. It had been two years since the experimental serum that had changed his life forever, but he had decided a few months ago that he would probably never be used to the changes.

“You’re going to shrink back if you keep staring,” Bucky called from across their small table, smirking as Steve jumped and looked up at him. He laughed as Steve let out a huff, embarrassed to have been caught checking out his own body – again. They were just coming back from a briefing with Major General Phillips over the latest mission, of which nobody felt certain. The discomfort regarding the mission had them all on edge, and one of Steve’s worst habits when stressed had been to lose himself in his own thoughts – usually regarding the hand life had so far dealt him. It was usually Bucky’s job to return Steve to the present, and this mission was no different.

“I don’t know if that would be so bad,” Steve finally replied, though they both knew he didn’t mean it, “Maybe then I’d quit breaking things.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Commander,” Peggy said next to him, patting his shoulder almost gently, “That’s what you do best, even if it’s not always on purpose.” She was sporting a grin that belied her insult, and Steve offered her a grateful look. He was once again reminded just how much the companionship of his two best officers meant to him.

The presence of Bucky Barnes was an obvious factor playing in Steve’s contentment as the newly-appointed Commander of the _SSV America SI-1_. Steve and Bucky had been reunited on Elysium less than a month after Steve underwent the serum treatment with Dr. Erskine. He had been on the small planet with Erskine as a spokesman for what had quickly been dubbed the Super-Soldier Serum when sudden attacks had taken him right back to Midnoir and he was scattering the crowd at record speeds. The two quite literally collided mid-attack when their forces met in the middle and were able to set up a decent enough defense system out of the colonists they had rescued.

The small militia survived under Steve’s impromptu leadership, even if they didn’t quite win, and held off the waves of slavers, warlords, and pirates for a week before their makeshift defenses caved and the entire colony was forced to retreat. The majority of the colony’s population successfully dispersed and hid in the forests of Elysium while Steve took a small group of men, including Bucky, back into the main city in order to set up a distress signal. It was only thanks to Steve’s near superhuman strength that the towers were ever properly erected, and that the Systems Navy received word on the attacks. The arrival of three fleets over the following week guaranteed the retreat or arrest of those attacking the planet.

Steve was lauded a hero for his leadership and efforts under pressure, despite his insistence that only because of the colonists and the small Alliance collection was he able to act at all. Bucky still sometimes gave him hell for it, but Steve considered it a good check on his own ego and usually welcomed Bucky’s teasing. He was mostly just glad to still have his best friend, and to be able to work with him even now.

Peggy Carter was a more recent addition, although Steve also valued her addition to his more permanent team. Peggy joined Steve and Bucky’s crew (which more or less consisted of the two of them wherever the Alliance needed them) after Steve found himself back under the leadership of then-Colonel Phillips. Peggy was an Operations Officer from Earth who had similarly landed a position working for the Colonel, who apparently thought the trio might make a good team. They’d suffered a few awkward missions on isolated, distant colony planets for months before the Colonel had deemed them fit for regular duty, at which point word of Steve’s prowess on Elysium had drawn enough attention to garner interest in the group. Peggy fit into the partnership Steve and Bucky had established like she had been designed to do so, and as a group the team was working their way into the upper ranks of the Systems Alliance.

It had actually been Peggy who had made the original recommendation to award Steve his own ship, and he still was blaming her for the sudden and unexpected switch into the Alliance’s Navy programs which granted him the position of Commander. The move had been formally recommended, of course, by the Colonel himself, and Peggy and Bucky couldn’t complain. As a result, the two also found themselves thrust forward in the Alliance, with Peggy securing herself as Operations Chief and Bucky as a 1st Lieutenant. Major General Phillips was beginning to complain that they would all be Admirals before he could even take his General title, but Steve suspected it wouldn’t happen. The relationship between the ground troops and fleets was precarious enough that the Alliance couldn’t risk the severance between the Major General and his best team, which now also answered to the fleets. It comforted Steve, anyway, who never would have suspected he would be responsible for the lives of an entire frigate and was still trying to convince himself he was capable of it.

“Hey, why don’t you go see if that Spectre has anything more to say about the mission?” Bucky asked after a long drawl of silence, and Steve drew his attention from Peggy only to realize he’d been spacing again. Peggy gave him another amused look before nodding in agreement.

“It might be a good idea for you to meet him ahead of time,” she added, “Especially if the rumors about this being a test for your Spectre candidacy are true.”

They were both right, of course. He had been on the receiving end of a number of rumors lately, but the most apparent and most likely to be true were those circulating that he was being considered by the Council  as a Spectre, a special ops force used by the Citadel and the Council for their purposes rather than for a single race. The idea thrilled and terrified Steve, but it did explain why he was suddenly commanding his own Alliance ship, and it did explain the sudden very secretive mission.

Steve nodded at his friends and stood, deciding that speaking to the Spectre that had joined their ship just before leaving the Citadel was probably his best course of action. Despite his wandering around, it seemed like nobody had really seen or spoken to the Spectre. He was apparently an Asgardian, although Steve didn’t really know how to tell the difference between as Asgardian and a human except that there _were no human Spectres_. Still, Asgardians were only slightly more common, and it was apparently a great challenge for those from Asgard to be named Spectre by the Council. Almost like a sport, which Steve thought was strange but figured was probably not a good topic of conversation with his ship-guest. He was still learning the best way not to offend the other species and races he was seeing with greater and greater frequency away from his home, but it was getting easier.

“Commander,” the man called as Steve entered the main drawing room and the door swished shut behind him, “It is a pleasure to have your company.”

Steve smiled despite his reservations, as the man’s exuberance could hardly be resisted. Steve wasn’t sure how a man in so serious a position could seem so upbeat, but the Spectre standing before him was grinning broadly and nearly bouncing with energy. Now getting such a close look at the Spectre, Steve could suddenly understand how one might tell an Asgardian from a human. When not sitting at the conference table, Thor was _huge_ , looming over even Steve’s substantial height and outweighing him by at least a hundred pounds. Steve suspected more just based on the sheer bulkiness of the muscles protruding from under Thor’s uniform, but he dare not ask the Asgardian about his weight or height for fear of offending the larger man. The idea of angering him seemed even less appealing now that Steve was almost literally in his shadow, regardless of the friendly appearance adorning his features.

“Thor,” he replied genially, “I thought we might discuss the mission a little further.”

Thor’s expression actually darkened at the mention of the task ahead of them, and Steve wondered briefly what about it might cause the man any amount of stress. It was his understanding that the mission was simple, a minor systems check on one of the outlying colonies that would prove neither exciting nor dangerous. Steve had assumed the Spectre’s presence was merely for observation.

“Yes, I too was hoping we would have the chance to discuss the upcoming mission,” Thor said, and uncrossed his arms in order to stride across the room. “I understand you have been briefed about the purpose of the mission and my reason for joining you.”

“Not quite,” Major General Phillips called from the door before Steve could speak, “Mostly because it was intended to be confidential.” His tone held the Major General’s usual sardonicism, but the way he was looking at Thor suggested it was territory Phillips didn’t want to breach.

Thor’s small scowl grew, halting his trek across the war room in order to turn to the Major General. “It is most preposterous that we should be dragging along the crew of this ship without at least explaining the gravity of their purpose,” he argued, his voice much louder than Steve had ever heard it before.

“It would not seem so preposterous to you, Spectre, if the importance of the mission were to fall into the wrong hands.” Major General Phillips’s voice was not nearly as loud as Thor’s, but held the same serious tone and implied that it was a point not to be argued. Steve chose to stay silent despite his rising alarm, because stepping in now while his superior was using those tones and giving those looks was unwise even if it was in the interest of a Spectre. Major General Phillips only served the Systems Alliance but it was a leadership with which even the Council dared not interfere.

Still, Thor remained unmoved, and the tension in the room only grew thicker. “If Commander Rogers is as you say,” he spoke slowly, with such deliberation that Steve couldn’t help but listen, “Then it is only with our best interest that he know his true purpose upon landing in Eden Prime.”

“So this is not a simple colony check,” Steve finally said, and wondered if perhaps Peggy had been right. The Major General’s odd secrecy was out of synch for the man, especially in regards to Steve’s team trio, and there hardly seemed to be a reason for a Council Spectre to be joining them on so minor a mission. The way Thor spoke implied something much greater, something Major General Phillips didn’t want to discuss.

He watched Steve with a practiced calm for a moment before he gave a heavy, world-weary sigh and shook his head.

“There’s nothing regular about Eden Prime,” he confirmed, and leaned against the room’s conference table. “Not since the colonists dug up an old Kree artifact, anyway.”

“What?” Steve halted, before he could stop himself. He shook his head in apology but the Major General did not look offended. It seemed he too was having difficulty accepting that any of what he said was possible at all.

“He speaks the truth,” Thor cut in, joining the Major General at the conference table and accessing a number of images from the Omni-tool on his wrist. There were a few flashes of a familiar territory, the Eden Prime colony, before a large grey obelisk appeared in the images, shining from a few points along its smooth surface but otherwise appearing unobtrusive. “Apparently the Earth-colonies were excavating a nearby site for an increase in agricultural colonization but instead stumbled upon what we are almost certain is a Kree beacon.”

“The Kree haven’t been seen in this galaxy for thousands of years,” Steve said, trying to get a better look at what Thor was calling a beacon, “Why would they need a beacon here?”

“We don’t know,” the Spectre replied, and he shut down the Omni-tool before Steve could get much closer. “But word is going to spread fast, and it’s my job to ensure that the Systems Alliance and the Council work hand in hand in the study of this device. We must gather as much information about the beacon as we can before too much attention is drawn to it, lest we encourage the visitation of less generous guests.”

“What the Spectre is trying to say,” Phillips elaborated, “Is that he’s here to make sure the Systems Alliance successfully extracts the beacon, or at least the information from the beacon, and gets it to the Council before pirates or black marketers do. It’s going to be up to your team to get to the beacon alongside the Spectre to guarantee its safe passage. It shouldn’t be much more complicated than a routine check, but obviously the consequences in this instance are much greater than some bad food making it back to Earth or something.”

“Yes sir,” Steve replied, and he was admittedly grateful to hear his superior’s sarcasm return almost as quickly as it had disappeared. Even Thor seemed slightly more relaxed now that the actual purpose of the mission had been shared. “If I may, sir,” Steve continued, “Do we know the purpose of this beacon? Or what it’s doing on Eden Prime?”

“This is information we are hoping to gather at the site,” Thor answered before the Major General could, “We currently only know that the beacon has been discovered and that it is almost certainly of Kree technology.”

The Major General nodded. “As you know,” he added, “Kree technology has been popping up all over the galaxy since aliens first started exploring it.” Phillips ignored the sour look Thor shot him at the word _alien_ and continued, despite the Asgardian’s looming, shifting figure. “The Mass Relays are Kreean, the Citadel is Kreean, hell even the communication block we found on Mars was Kreean, but we haven’t been able to tell how or why or even how to rebuild any of it. The Council suspects the beacon might be the beginning of an explanation, or at least a peek into the technology that the Kree took with them when they fled the galaxy thousands of years ago.”

“Then it’s imperative we get the information the beacon has to provide into safe hands as quickly as we can,” Steve agreed. Thor’s grin returned full force with Steve’s new conviction, but the Major General rolled his eyes dramatically. Steve suspected Phillips felt this was out of his job description – the man had been hunting pirates in the field for as long as Steve had known him, and had consciously passed up ‘research opportunities’ each time they were awarded him, but this seemed much more serious and required much more insurance than a single Spectre and a newly formed Alliance team. Regardless of his feelings, Steve was glad to have the Major General alongside him for one of his first missions, especially given its importance.

“I hate to interrupt,” Bucky called quite suddenly from the now open door, leaving Steve to wonder just how long his friend and teammate had been standing there, “But Peggy picked up some information being broadcast from Eden Prime that we thought you guys might find interesting.” He was smirking, so Steve suspected the information either had to do with their new mission or Bucky had been hanging around longer than any of them realized. Neither would really surprise Steve, because both Bucky and Peggy seemed to know when important information was being distributed and always managed to get a hold of it not matter Steve’s efforts.

“What sort of information?” Thor asked. Bucky’s grin fell, meaning the other man’s smirk had meant he’d been eavesdropping on their conversation and had forgotten the nature of the information. He set up his Omni-tool as he stepped into the room and activated the communicator.

“Very urgent news, I’m afraid,” Peggy’s voice called from the small device, “You’d better have a listen.” She was immediately followed by a static, broken message that seemed to be on repeat:

_“Eden Prime emergency systems… marines under attack… two hundred hours… beacon the main… colony falling back… ship unidentified… overwhelmed…”_

“Was there no visual?” Phillips asked, to which Bucky shook his head.

“Just the audio transmission, which we think might have been coming from a residential emergency kit. If there were already marines down there and they were overwhelmed there’s no telling what sort of equipment may be left.” _Or who_ , Bucky clearly wanted to add but didn’t air out loud. Steve and the Major General nodded thoughtfully.

“It could be pirates,” Steve suggested, hoping against hope that it would be. Pirates usually meant an unorganized gathering of poorly equipped men, much like the raid on his own home colony. Pirates meant the trip would be more routine to their usual stops, but it also meant there were fewer worries regarding their new target. “Batarians have been known to patrol this area.”

“But the transmission implied that the beacon was the main target,” Phillips argued, “There’s no way batarians would understand the significance of the beacon, much less think to target what looks to be another hunk of metal. They would be after the wealthier homesteads on the other side of the planet.”

“Regardless of who we face, we must do it quickly and without hesitation,” Thor said, and his face had become solemn again. He was access information on his Omni-tool hurriedly, and looking like he was ready to move as soon as the ship was able to set him down. “Especially if it is the beacon they seek.”

“I think we can agree on that, Spectre,” the Major General replied, and turned to Steve. “I want your land teams ready to go yesterday.”

Steve saluted before seizing Bucky on his way out of the war room. “Peggy, get ready to hit surface,” he spoke into Bucky’s communicator, not waiting for a reply from the woman on the other side before dropping the other man’s arm. “You too, Bucky, this just got a lot more serious that we originally thought.”

“So we heard,” the brunet replied, “You really think it’s a Kree beacon?”

“That would explain what Thor’s doing here,” Steve replied simply, because he wasn’t really sure yet what he thought. He was still trying to figure out how the mission had escalated so quickly, and just how they were going to handle a battle-ridden colony while also searching for the beacon.

“I’ve got the backup fleet coming in to help clear the attack,” Major General Phillips said from behind them as he ushered them to the landing pods, almost as though he was reading Steve’s mind. “They’re going to handle that while you move to the beacon. Your priority is the information, and Thor will meet you at the site.”

“Where is the Spectre?” Peggy asked as she joined them, the group of three taking seats as the Major General signaled the pilot.

“He took off in his own pod,” Phillips answered, though he didn’t look too pleased, “Lord only knows where the man is headed or what his intentions are. But he said he would meet you there, and that is your number one priority. I’ll see you after you get that beacon and the information on it. And keep a close eye on Thor for me, will you? The Systems Alliance agreed to share the information, not donate it. Blondie’s been a little enthusiastic for my tastes this whole trip.” He offered one more small salute which they reciprocated and patted the back of the pod before the hatch closed and the three exchanged wide-eyed looks. This was clearly going to be a mission unlike anything they’d every handled, and Steve only hoped they were ready for it.


	3. Chapter 3

The scene that greeted Commander Rogers and his two companions as they were dropped off on-site was a familiar one to the three officers, who had been chasing war for years. Yet there was something distinctly different, a kind of atmosphere that spoke of fear and war but not the usual pillaging and chaos.

“This isn’t pirates,” Bucky said from behind him, “There’s isn’t enough damage for pirates to have come through here.”

“And yet it’s too much to assume we might have just stumbled upon a bad part of the colony,” Peggy added. And it was true, Steve noted as he too got a good look around. There were always sectors of colonies that were not as well off as their neighbors, and there was always the chance of landing in one only to find it little better than the destroyed mess of a pillaged town. But even then there was organization, where the poorest of residents hoarded what they could and relished a pride over their territories. The scene before them was goods littered in the streets, like a town that had been rapidly evacuated but only half looted before even the last of men had disappeared. The properties seemed to be in relatively stable condition, where normally pirates destroyed the living pods before moving on. There wasn’t even any distance evidence of the colony’s destruction, and Steve wondered briefly where the combat-ridden help transmission had come from.

“There’s no telling what we’re dealing with,” Steve finally said, pulling the assault rifle from its place on his back and relaxing its weight between his hands, “So keep an eye out. The dig site’s coordinates are on your omni-tools, so if we get separated try to keep in contact and head for there."

“Aye, sir,” both Bucky and Peggy replied, but the two were sporting matching grins. They would follow Steve to hell and back, but for the life of him he couldn’t get them to behave under orders. Steve gave them both an exasperated eye roll before the three headed down the debris-filled road.

“I’ve been picking up very strange readings in the electrical fields,” Steve heard over the communicator not a mile down their path. He paused, pressing the small device a little harder into his ear, and looked to his companions for advice. The speaker was clearly Thor, although Steve wasn’t sure why the Spectre might be taking electrical readings or what they might mean.

“That makes sense,” Peggy said, her hand also pressed gently. She was nodding thoughtfully, and looking around as though she might see the fields Thor was referencing. “Thor was accepted into the Spectre ranks partially based on his ability to control lightning. It’s my understanding that this is not an Asgardian trait but more of a personal ability, but it would come naturally that he might be sensitive to the electric fields a planet might put off.”

“Doesn’t really tell us anything about what we’re dealing with, though,” Bucky said, and the look Peggy shot him was just short of scathing.

“Roger that,” Steve called to Thor over the communicator once Peggy had explained, and turned to his companions. “Still, it’s something on what’s going on here. We at least know we’re looking for something that could mess with Thor’s electric senses.”

Bucky and Peggy both nodded, and the three continued as they had before. They spread out a little further as they searched, with Bucky taking the point and Steve taking the rear. Peggy cleared between the two, investigating the spaces Bucky didn’t as he pushed them forward and nodding to Steve to investigate the places she missed. They found nothing in the pods surrounding them, and the colony began to thin so that soon all three officers began to suspect they may find the beacon without interference.

“Steve,” Bucky called suddenly, and Steve was drawn from his thoughts and the nearest pod to look at his best friend. Bucky was halted at the top of a hill, his gun lowered and his face grim. Steve and Peggy both headed toward him, but the smell of burning metal and sulfur overwhelmed them even before they broke the small hill.

“What – ?” Steve asked incredulously as he got his first look at the destruction that had been wrought on Eden Prime. There were bodies – human bodies – littered across what could only be described as a battlefield, and skewered on giant technological spikes. Peggy made a small choking sound as she approached behind them, covering her mouth as she too took in the destruction they had walked into.

“What has happened to these people?”

“Geth, it’s geth! Get back!” Bucky cried suddenly, pulling both Steve and Peggy back the way they came and hiking his sniper rifle into a position from which he could fire it. Sure enough, the moment Bucky spoke there were two small droids nearly on top of the group that the Lieutenant disabled with two precise shots through their glowing processors.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Peggy hissed after him as they pulled into an alley beyond one of the pods, “The geth aren’t known to attack human colonies. Their only conflicts should be with the quarians, and even that is systems away.”

Steve shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Fact is, they’re running around in that field and if they’re hostile, we have to take the bastards down. Our priority still stands, regardless of who we’re facing.”

“Affirmative,” both officers replied, deadly serious now that they were entering combat. They verified their destination before pulling out of the alley in file, guns raised as they re-entered the battlefield.

It was eerily quiet as the group began to transverse the smoking remains of the colony’s outer limits, with only a murmured buzz from the spikes on which the colonists had been impaled providing any sort of sound. Steve, Peggy, and Bucky moved swiftly through the space, trying too hard not to stare at the dead eyes that gazed back at them from the lost colonists. Steve reminded himself with every step that his mission remained to pick up the Kree artifact despite his rising frustration and confusion over the geth occupation. It was getting harder with every corpse they passed, every colonist they had failed to save, and Steve found himself gritting his teeth before they had even reached the highest ground in the field. They stopped as they finally reached that point, looking around the burning field to try to get their bearings.

Steve was reinvestigating the coordinates in his omni-tool when a firm hand on his left shoulder revealed that Peggy had paused beside him. She was looking at Steve with such sympathy that he was immediately filled with warmth, and he gripped her hand reassuringly before turning to Bucky and finding the same look. The three made a silent agreement there on the hill, that as soon as the beacon was secure to come back and find out exactly what had happened to the colonists. Steve shifted his assault rifle back into a comfortable grip and they pushed forward from the battlefield with this new determination in mind.

The beacon’s dig site was not much farther up the path, and appeared to be untouched by the geth invasion.

“Path appears clear, Thor,” Steve called over the comm channel as he and his teammates navigated the maze of equipment, “But we may have found what the emergency call was for.”

“I, too, have figured this out,” Thor called over the channel, and the sounds of combat were clear over the booming of his voice. Steve winced as the crunch of metal sounded over a crisp shot of electricity, which now that he was paying attention could be seen crackling through the air maybe a mile to their north.

“We have your position,” Steve called to Thor, gesturing to the growing lightning for his companions, who nodded and turned to head that way. “We’re on our way to assist.”

“Not necessary,” Thor replied breathily into the comms, still crackling with energy. One last larger bolt of lightning threatened in the distance before the whole concentration seemed to fade. “I have defeated the foes on this end and am now nearing the beacon’s site. I shall meet you and your companions there, yes?”

“Sure thing, Spectre,” Bucky called over Steve’s scowl, such that Steve almost shut off the comm before Thor’s voice came through again.

“A small note, though, that casualties on this side are heavy,” he said, nearly a whisper and hardly sounding like the Asgardian Spectre they had heard moment before, “And the handling of the departed is… cruel, at best.”

Steve sighed, knowing exactly what Thor was seeing. It was the same nightmare they had just forced their way through, and he leaned into his omni-tool for a moment before speaking into it. “We’ve seen the same on this end,” he replied, carefully, “A battlefield, no sign of survivors.”

“Nor over here,” Thor answered bleakly. “That the geth could be so thoughtless of the remains of – !”

“Is not why we’re here,” Steve reminded him quickly, even though he and his friends definitely felt the same. “We’re to pick up the beacon, get it to safety. Afterwards we can try and locate the rest of the colony.” If there were any left.

“This is acceptable. Have you come upon the coordinates yet?”

“Affirmative,” Peggy answered as they cleared the last of the equipment, practically toppling the small carts that were in their way. “At least, we should have been.”

The site to which they were referring was nothing but an empty space. It was clearly a dig site, one which had been carefully constructed and properly maintained, except for the fact that all that remained was the red dirt of the planet. Still, Steve verified the location with his omni-tool only to find they were in fact at the right location.

“It’s empty,” he told Thor, looking around for signs that the beacon might have been here before.

“ _Was_ empty,” Bucky called before Thor could reply, and again Steve found himself being ushered behind cover by his scout friend. The shots of pulse shotguns rang over their heads as they sought shelter behind an overturned container, hitting the ground on their knees as they prepared their weapons.

“More geth, six drones, three troopers!” Peggy shouted from behind another nearby container. She was already reloading her pistols as she shouted, and was firing again before she finished.

“Ten-four!” Bucky and Steve both called back, pulling over the top to aim for the geth troopers Peggy had announced. Sure enough, there were three large robots looming just at the entrance of the site, pulse rifles aimed towards where Peggy was safely nestled behind the shipping containers. Steve was glad the containers were so heavy, as the pulse rifles were mostly impact rifles rather than containing physical bullets, although the force behind them was nothing to joke about. Both of their containers were getting pummeled with the shots, so that they shuddered and twisted a little with every few shots. Steve knew they would have to act fast if they were to put down so many geth, and prepared his assault rifle to do so.

Finding the first trooper was not difficult, as the three larger geth were marching towards the group menacingly, guns drawn and firing. Steve found the first on an angle where he could see just one of them, and took aim as the geth allowed its own weapon to cool down. It was only a few shots into the center of the machine to force it to the ground, and a few more shots to ensure that it was dead – or whatever Artificial Intelligence droids did, since Steve hadn’t really thought about it before. He’d never had to fight an AI, much less kill one, so he wasn’t quite sure about the mechanics of them.

“Shit!” Bucky shouted, ducking as he narrowly missed taking a shot right between the eyes. The space behind them sizzled with warning and Steve lowered himself quickly to avoid the same fate. “You might have mentioned the sniper!”

“An honest mistake!” Peggy shouted back, trying to peer around the edge to find the sniper Bucky was referencing. But it wasn’t visible, not to any of them. Bucky cursed one more time and cocked his own sniper rifle, hiking it up against his shoulder before tossing it onto the top of the container. He focused for only a moment before pulling the trigger, letting the recoil push him back into a squatting position. Steve watched as one more geth tumbled from atop a nearby pod, stumbling a little from where it had been shot in one of its legs.

“Not through the driver?” Peggy called back with a smirk, placing three bullets right into the center of the nearest trooper’s face. It fell quickly, and Peggy moved on to the drones that were now trying to circle overhead. Steve aimed and shot one as it popped up above their container, knocking it down before it could move to attack them. Peggy similarly shot one as it drew closer to her, all while watching Bucky for his reaction.

“Shot the first bit of motion I spotted,” Bucky replied back easily, taking aim again and felling the geth sniper in one last shot. Steve allowed a brief chuckle to interrupt his own concentration as he nailed another of the drones overhead and it fell to the ground with a loud _clang_. With only one geth trooper left to kill, and three smaller drones hovering nervously around it, the group felt much better and didn’t hesitate to take aim over the containers.

Bucky took out the last of the troopers, since his reload was quicker and he called it before either Steve or Peggy could, but they busied themselves aiming for the drones instead. It was even easier as they drew closer to each other, and Steve took advantage of the continuous rounds of his rifle to knock all three to the ground, where Peggy put pistol rounds into them as they squirmed.

“Commander Rogers!” Thor was shouting through the comms, and Steve realized he had not heard the Asgardian through the fighting. He caught his breath and holstered his fun as he finally replied.

“We’re here, Spectre, just got caught up with some rogue geth. But we have confirmed that the beacon is not here, have you found it where you are?”

“Wretched technology,” Thor cursed in reply, “They have just passed through here. But it appears I may know the location of the beacon. There is a small spaceport about a mile west of here which I will upload to you. It appears there are a large number of geth moving towards that location, and did see them moving large amounts of equipment. If anything, my suspicions would be that the beacon would be included in their spoils.”

“Well, it’s not perfect. But it’s our best shot for now. Send the location and we’ll meet you outside the port.” Steve waited patiently for Thor’s information, and was relieved to find the spaceport was indeed not far. If there really were geth headed in that direction, they would undoubtedly have to fight off a few more before meeting up with the Spectre.

“Do you actually suppose the geth have taken the beacon? And for what purpose, if they have?” Peggy asked as they followed the path that led away from where they had just cleared.

Steve verified the location on his omni-tool before nodding. “I can’t tell you. But it’s not here, and they were clearly here for _something_ other than to just murder the colonists.”

“We hope, anyway,” Bucky cut in smoothly. Steve nodded again, grimly, and they began their push through with determination, knowing Thor was so many steps ahead of them and likely to put himself danger with every moment they were not at his side.

Surprisingly, they neared the spaceport with not even a single encounter with the geth. Steve suspected they might have missed them all, and hoped that tailing behind didn’t mean they were too late. He could barely handle having been too late for the staked bodies that they were still coming across as they moved towards the spaceport; failing their mission was a completely unacceptable addition to that.

“There’s something moving around ahead,” Peggy warned quietly as they drew nearer, but her eyes were glued to her omni-tool, which was displaying for them just the slightest motion on a map signifying the area ahead. The three stopped, watching the map carefully before deciding what to do.

“Heat signatures wouldn’t mean geth,” Bucky observed, and the three exchanged glances before hope welled within Steve. So many large signatures moving around were not likely to be local fauna this far into the colonies, and more than one meant they hadn’t stumbled upon Thor but definitely somebody else.

“It could be colonists,” Steve allowed himself to say, checking his optimism even as he said it. Bucky and Peggy were both clearly hoping the same thing, but there was doubt in their eyes, too.

Bucky moved ahead of the other two, rifle still in his hands but now hanging loosely by his hips instead of pressed into his shoulder. Steve was glad to see his team allowing themselves to feel the same hope he was carefully harboring after such a dark day, and he prayed it wasn’t for naught. If they could just find one surviving colonist this whole trip would not have felt as if it were in vain.

There were colonists just beyond their stopping point, although it was nothing new. More dead humans, more technological stakes, and no sign of life anywhere.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Peggy said, re-examining her omni-tool. “There were just readings from right here. They should be life, movement, at least something beyond more of the same. ”

“There’s nothing here,” Steve replied numbly, iterating what the three had already seen. “Or whatever was here just seconds ago has already moved on.” He allowed a small sigh before motioning them to continue. “Come on. We’re still short on time with Thor and if we don’t move quickly – ”

“I don’t think they’ve moved on,” Bucky cut in suddenly. He was staring at the bodies before them, slowly lifting his rifle back to his place against his shoulder. Steve followed his gaze, but didn’t see anything more than the mangled corpses of the colonists. Had Bucky seen something beyond the spikes?

Steve was going to ask the other man what he meant when he finally spotted it. There was nothing around the spikes because the things that were moving were _on_ the spikes. The trio stared in stunned horror as the nearest spike suddenly moved, lowering itself into the ground and depositing the colonist that had been impaled on it on his feet. The colonist stood still for a moment, only his fingers twitching, before stumbling forward in jerky, unsettled motions. He began moving towards them, dragging his left foot and hunching his shoulders awkwardly as he approached. When he had almost reached them, the stakes behind him began to slowly lower as well, depositing the other colonists on their feet in a similar fashion.

“Sir, are you alright?” Steve tried to ask, ignoring the other colonists for the moment and taking a small step towards the struggling man. He was cut off before he could finish the sentence, however, as the colonist swung at his face with dark, sharp nails. It was only as Steve was dodging that he got a good look at the man, who was deathly pale and practically blue in tint. His eyes were what gave the man away: they were glowing, a solid blue like a hologram or the core of a machine. Realization hit Steve as the man swiped at him again, but a shot rang out before the colonist could draw nearer. Steve looked to where Peggy still had her whirring pistol raised.

“They’re robots, at least partially,” Steve muttered, looking back to the still glowing eyes of the man on the ground. Looking up at the slowly approaching crowd, it was suddenly more obvious. All of the colonists had glowing blue eyes, completely stripped of their humanity. They were all bluish in color, if their skin even looked like skin any more, and many had chords and lines running up and through their bodies. They all shuffled along the ground as though they didn’t have complete control of their bodies, and Steve suspected they didn’t. Still, they were a threat if the first attack had said anything, so Steve backed towards his teammates warily.

“What have these monsters done?” Peggy asked as she prepared her pistol again, grimacing as she took out the nearest two in two easy headshots while Bucky did the same on the other side.

“As good as killed them,” Bucky replied to Steve’s other side over the sound of their gunfire. The assault seemed easy enough to hold off, assuming their ammo held out and they didn’t allow any of the _things_ to get too close. The creatures’ only advantage seemed to be their elongated claws, although Steve still wasn’t sure what damage they could do if given the opportunity. But they were beginning to move faster, it seemed, with less jerkiness and more precision. If Steve and his team wasn’t careful they were going to find themselves in trouble.

“Peggy,” Steve called, not looking away from the quickly growing hoard, “Break east while Bucky and I give you some cover. We’re going to try to hit the west flank. If we can get around this main group, we should be able to get through the spaceport’s main walls without too many following.” Steve finished speaking right as one of the creatures broke through their firing wall and he was forced to bash it in the head with the butt of his rifle.

“I’ll being doing most of the covering, probably,” Peggy replied with a small smirk, but she also nodded and immediately jumped to action. It was mere seconds before she had put nearly the entire hoard between them, although it felt like hours to the two men who were now focused on two groups of targets. But the further Peggy got, it seemed the easier it was to cover her and soon both Steve and Bucky were moving in the other direction, trying to kick away strays at the same time.

“Spring for it,” Steve called as there was a tiny reprieve in the attacks on them, and he gave Bucky only the smallest of pushes before the other man was in fact sprinting for the spaceport.

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Bucky replied, though the two were already moving. They managed to just skirt the outermost edges of the attacking creates, shooting only a few as their path was blocked. As they approached the wall Peggy remained true to her word and began firing from one of the port’s nearby upper levels, allowing both Steve and Bucky to just dive in the nearest entrance and get it closed. She rejoined them quickly, appearing through another nearby doorway and looking glad to see them both.  She looked a little winded, but it was not a small jog that any of them had just done.

“Thor,” Steve called into his receiver a little breathlessly, still slightly fatigued, “Thor, we’re at the spaceport, do you copy?”

“Affirmative,” the Asgardian finally called, and Bucky gave a relieved laugh through his gasping for air. “I am also arrived, and near the front entrance. I have seen considerable movement through the far port and I am continuing to watch it for our beacon.”

“We’ll meet you there,” Steve replied, nodding to his teammates. “We shouldn’t be far,” he told them, if his memory of the outside served him correctly.

“We’re not,” Peggy confirmed, “Just down this corridor and to the left, although hopefully we won’t be stuck on opposite ends of the main thoroughfare.”

They weren’t, as it turned out, because as soon as they were down the long hallway and turned the corner they found Thor crouched behind a shipping crate and leaning over suspiciously to watch what was happening beyond. Steve found the idea of the hulking man trying to be stealthy an almost ridiculous one, considering Thor barely fit behind the crate, but he supposed there were no other options. He shared a meaningful look with both Bucky and Peggy, who took points on the corner while Steve moved in next to Thor.

“What’s the news, Thor?” he whispered as he approached, but the Spectre raised his hand to silence him for a moment.

“They have brought in much larger cargo in just the past few moments. There is still no sign of the beacon,” Thor replied after a minute or so of silent watching. He still did not look at Steve, but that seemed appropriate considering only he knew what he was looking for.

“So is it just geth or is there somebody else here?” Steve tried, silencing his own fear that they might have missed the beacon and the whole trip was for naught.

“So far it has been only geth, although – Lo, and there it is!” Thor excitement was nearly tangible, making Steve certain they had in fact found their target. He looked back to tell Bucky and Peggy, but they were both nearly laughing at Thor, and so he turned back to the Asgardian.

“So let’s go get it and be out of here. It’s just a few geth, correct?”

“Nay,” Thor replied, and wasn’t that weird, “There is another walking alongside the beacon, and it is no geth although I cannot discern – ” Thor paused, trying to get a closer look at the figure that was apparently transporting their beacon. Steve waited patiently while he looked, but his hand was ready at his weapon and he was confident his teammates were prepared to do the same, Spectre be damned.

“It cannot be,” Thor whispered, shock and something else thick in his voice cutting into Steve’s concentration.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked from beside him. He still couldn’t see anything from around the Spectre, and he dare not draw any attention to them by moving around more now that Thor seemed so alarmed.

Thor didn’t even look back as he replied. “The one who now moves the beacon is my brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the extended delay of this chapter. This has been my nanowrimo project and in the rush to get the appropriate amount of words in the time frame the story was unfortunately hastily written and mostly unsuitable for publishing. The good news is that it's now mostly finished -- or at least the really meaty parts have been -- but all of the chapters are in desperate need of reworking and probably some heavy rewriting. I hope to have them posted as I go, though, so thanks for all your patience, readers.  
> I hope I removed all of the glaring mistakes but alas that is never the case, so I also apologize for any errors you find.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve almost blew his own cover as he peered over the storage container to get a good look at the man Thor had identified as his brother. Sure enough, there was a man – or rather, there was an Asgardian – walking alongside the geth that were pushing what could only be the Kree beacon. Steve had heard almost as much about the Spectre Loki as he had about Thor: that he was the younger of the two, but had specialized in biotics, and with the training he had received had become almost unprecedented in the field. Loki was known more infamously, however, for his silver tongue and love of creating chaos. Steve had heard enough stories of the young Asgardian who had taken liberties on planets that even other Spectres had considered questionable, and had received the warnings from his teammates when he had told them they were to be working with Spectres. Steve had brushed them off at the time but suddenly felt that the warnings might have been more justifiable than he had originally assumed. He felt like there might have been some surprise in this sudden development, but was disappointed to find none. Even Steve wasn’t totally impervious to rumors, although it seemed that Thor had missed the message.

“What is it that he is trying to accomplish?” the Spectre asked, almost too loudly considering their precarious hiding place. “What does he gain from the theft of the beacon?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Steve replied, though he wasn’t looking at the hurting man beside him, “But we’ve got our eyes on the beacon now, and we’d do best to get it back to our ship before we really find out.”

“No,” Thor said with such conviction that the two finally looked at each other, and Steve felt slightly bewildered by the other man’s dark gaze, “I would confront my brother and discover the reason for his betrayal.”

Steve took a deep breath, searching hard for words. “Thor I don’t think if he’s gone through this much that there’s any reason worth investigating. We need to get the beacon and more importantly, we need to arrest him before he – “

“Target is disappearing down the corridor,” Bucky cut in, for which Steve was grateful. Thor’s scathing stare was only growing the more Steve spoke, and he was glad for the opportunity to turn away from it. Instead he carefully peeked over the top of the crate again, if only to confirm Bucky’s assessment.

“What’s the order, Commander?” Peggy asked after a moment, once Loki and the geth trailing him had cleared the hallway. She was still crouched behind him, but was slowly rising to investigate the area. Bucky too was lifting himself to move towards Steve and Thor, all signs of the previous occupants gone.

“Peggy,” Steve said after a brief hesitation, “I want you to follow them, figure out where they’re going or what they’re doing and report in before they can do it. Stick to hiding and whatever you do, do not get caught, you hear me?” Peggy nodded as Steve turned to Bucky and Thor. “The three of us are going to follow the corridor to see if we can’t confront them that way before Loki picks up too many more geth. We’re also running interference for Peg. You hear the whirring of a robot, you take it out before it can report to the hive. Got it?” This time Bucky and Thor both nodded, and Steve felt a surge of pride over their teamwork. Despite the setbacks, the mission was looking like it would be more of a success than they were beginning to think. At least all those who had been lost on Eden Prime wouldn’t have been completely wasted.

“I’ll stick to the airshafts,” Peggy said, interrupting Steve from his thoughts and drawing his attention to her activated omni-tool. There was already a map of the location on display, with the ventilation highlighted and following Loki’s most likely path. “Communications are confirmed, and I will see you three on the other side.” That said, Peggy offered them a smirk before vaulting herself up a nearby bench and into the vent that rested above it. Steve watched her only long enough to watch her squirm her hips through the opening before turning back to the two men in front of him and pulling out his rifle.

“That’s our cue, gentlemen, let’s roll out.”

The hall they followed was a docking bay, and a maze of twists and turns that led to loading spaces and waiting areas alike. The three men were surprised to find the entire hall cleared of life, with not even colony bodies left behind. But they were on an important mission, and where there hadn’t been clear activity they passed quickly. After the third empty bay, Steve’s suspicions were beginning to grow, and he pushed the pair behind him faster.

“Ships are taking off,” Peggy called from the comms, and there was a loud noise resounding behind her. Steve held his omni-tool to his ear to better hear her, but what she had said was made clear as the entire facility began to shake. A nearby window revealed a cloud of smoke and through it, a rising ship. Beyond it, Steve could see a number of ships that seemed ready for takeoff.

“They must be headed for one of those ships,” he nearly shouted, tightening his grip on his rifle and breaking out into a run towards the other end of the bay. If the ships were already taking off, then their time limit had just been cut short and it didn’t much matter what the plan had been.

“Shit, Steve!” Bucky called after him, giving chase to his commander down the halls. He hooked the butt of his own rifle into his shoulder and followed with a frustrated groan. Thor was on his heels in an instant, his hammer raised nearly to his head in anticipation of combat.

They weren’t waiting long, as it was only a few hangars down that the trio soon encountered a small group of geth trying to load a number of pieces of equipment onto an already roaring ship. Bucky shot one through the center of its lens before the geth could even process their sudden appearance, and it was with very little effort that Thor and Steve finished off the remaining few.

“There can’t be that many of these left,” Bucky exhaled, adjusting his rifle and trying to peer down the corridor. Thor rolled his shoulders and joined Bucky on the aisle while Steve tried to get a quick assessment of the loading dock they had just cleared. Already the ship was gone, but none of the men had spotted either Loki or the beacon within its small hull. It was a comforting thought that the rogue Spectre may still be at the station, but one that was quickling waning.

“Yes, but there aren’t that many ships left, either,” Steve commented in return. He was gazing out the window at the remaining ports and hangars, taking a mental count of those that remained and making his best guess as to which Loki might try to board. All of the ships seemed identical, though there seemed to be the most activity at the end. It was Steve’s best guess, and was confirmed when Peggy’s voice rang through their communications.

“Visual on Loki,” she announced, quietly, and a set of coordinates came through on their maps immediately following, “Although time is limited. It seems they’re loading the beacon now and are preparing to secure it for takeoff.”

“Ten-four,” Steve confirmed, and waved Bucky in the direction shown on their maps. But the sniper was already moving, his boots thudding heavily on the station’s floor with Thor’s following behind him. Steve sent their updated coordinates to Peggy before rushing to meet the other two, hesitating only when the sound of gunfire errupted not one hundred yards down the corridor. Ahead of him, Bucky was already alternating peering through his scope and aiming for closer targets as he skid into the last hangar, and the energy gathering around Thor was visible and even tangible by the time Steve caught up to them.

He fired a few rounds from his assault rifle into a nearby pack of geth before determining his best cover behind a nearby crate. Bucky joined him behind another crate while Thor covered them both, and the sound of pistols alerted them to Peggy’s presence on the far side of the loading dock. She gave a curt nod as she sought shelter on her end and Steve took over on firing at their intended enemy.

“Kill the survivors,” Loki suddenly called out, and Steve just barely caught sight of him loaded towards the back of the loaded ship. He could only look for a moment, but it was all Steve needed to confirm that Loki still had the beacon and was not quite ready to disappear out the hangar doors. He shot of one small round towards the Spectre that luckily caught one of the beacon’s clasps before he was forced to duck in order to avoid the geth’s own plasma rifles.

“And destroy the colony once you’re done!” Loki added as he desperately grasped at the now unstable beacon. It was in this confusion that Thor decided to make himself known, hs power radiating and cackling around him.

“Brother,” the blond called, so imposing that even the geth paused to look at the Asgardian. Loki himself only moved so that he could glance at Thor, but did not loosen his grasp on the beacon. “Brother,” Thor called again, “Explain this madness at once.”

Despite the distance and despite the context, Steve found the conversation entirely too intimate and immediately sought another source of attention. There were still geth hovering around the entrance to the hangar and around the ship, although both Peggy and Bucky had barely paused their assaults. Steve took aim but focused more on his communication link as he fired.

“I thought I told you to stay hidden,” he called into it, giving Peggy on the far side a pointed look as the accusation phased through her device. The look he received was almost condescending, a smirk that just barely covered a roll of her eyes.

“You were close enough,” she replied, “I had to do something to stop the loading.”

“Like she ever listens, anyway,” Bucky cut in, and the snort that came from Peggy sounded even over the crack of his sniper rifle going off. A geth standing near Bucky suddenly dropped to the ground opposite her direction, and the look she gave Bucky over the smoking barrel of her pistol was response enough.

“Next time,” Steve began with a shake of his head, but he was cut short as a cry from Thor drew him back to the fight at hand. The two Asgardians were standing close to each other but Thor was quickly pulling away, clutching his side as it began to dye red with blood. Loki was scowling at him but did not move forward, and Steve seized the opportunity to jump his crate cover in order to catch the stumbling Spectre. Bucky handed the geth around him as he approached Thor, who gratefully caught his shoulder as he sunk to his knees beside him.

“This is the best way,” Loki continued as though he hadn’t just impaled his brother with the spear that was dripping Thor’s blood onto his hands, “It is the only way.”

“Turn over the beacon, Loki,” Steve called over Thor’s wheezing reply, “It doesn’t have to end like this!”

“And you know nothing!” the smaller Asgardian shouted in response. He lifted his fist and proceeded to fire a biotic shot towards Steve, but it seemed to be only a warning because it missed by a large margin. “Do not think that you can even begin to comprehend the importance of this Kree signal or any of what is to come!” Again, he shot a biotic blast towards Steve, who jumped away from Thor just in time to narrowly avoid the energy and begin pushing towards the ship and the beacon.

At Steve’s sudden rush forward, Loki’s eyes grew wide and he began a similar rush backward, continuing to fire what he could towards Steve in an attempt to slow the Commander down. Steve pressed on, creating a random pattern across the floor as he skidded to avoid the blasts and the energy beams that were aimed towards him.

The attention halted suddenly as the gunfire  that had signalled Peggy and Bucky’s fight suddenly changed and Steve looked to see the two of them aiming for Loki himself. The surrounding geth had all been eliminated, and Loki was forced to establish a barrier around himself to avoid the bullets from both of Steve’s teammates. Peggy began to approach Steve and Loki as one of Bucky’s shots ricocheted off of Loki’s shield and knocked his head to the side by one of the small ornaments on his space helmet.

It caused a very sudden change in attitude within the Spectre, as evidenced by the alarm that became almost immediately visible on his face. He seemed to be in disbelief over having been successfully hit even if only on his helmet, and instead of re-establishing his biotic shields, he turned and ran straight for the hangar doors.

Both Steve and Peggy were too far back to quite catch up to the running Asgardian, but  one of Bucky’s bullets did managed to catch the man in the shoulder. He cried out and stumbled just as he approached the hangar door, but was still able to crawl out quickly enough to disappear around the corner. By the time Steve and Peggy reached the point where he had disappeared, Loki’s form was visible on one of the retreating ships just down the line.

“I can clear a shot,” Bucky shouted to the two, motioning them to move while focusing through his rifle’s scope.

“Negative, Buck,” Steve called in return, “We have what we came for.”

And it was true, because the ship that held the beacon had remained in the hangar and had already been cleared of geth in the fire fight.

“Is it stable?” Peggy asked as she and Steve approached the entrance, Bucky joining them after briefly checking on Thor. The Asgardian was still on the ground but seemed to be more catching his breath than suffering any major injury, and waved Bucky away as he approached.

“Seems to be so,” Steve replied, since he was closest to the Kree beacon. It was difficult to tell, because the ship was still buzzing with life and the beacon seemed to be moving on its own. Steve assumed this might be on purpose, since the design of the sleek spire seemed to call for the swaying motion it was now undergoing. “Thor, whenever you’re ready we can call mission and get this loaded up.”

“Just give me a moment, friend,” Thor said, still gripping his side although the bleeding seemed to have subsided. He took a gasping breath and prepared to stand, accepting only the most basic assistance from Bucky as the young man moved to help him.

“This is Commander Rogers to base,” Steve began into his omni-tool as Bucky discreetly led the Asgardian Spectre towards him and Peggy, “We have the package and are prepared for extraction.”

“Ten-four,” rang through all four omni-tools, although the sound was tinny and covered in static. Steve only had time to give the communicator the briefest of glances before he figured out why the quality had been so terrible. The center of the Kree beacon had suddenly open and was beginning to glow a bright blue, swaying the spire itself more rapidly than before. Steve felt the slightest of tugs on his person before he was moving away from it, calling out in alarm and pulling Peggy with him.

His feet were suddenly lifted from under him, and he was given only a moment’s reprieve from the tug that he used to throw his weight against Peggy. She surged forward, almost into Bucky and Thor, who caught her and shared looks of equal surprise as Steve was lifted from the ground.

Their similar expressions were the last thing Steve saw as his vision was suddenly swimming in a murky white that led to complete blankness. His muscles seized too, and Steve found himself still upright but completely prone, a slight tingling against every nerve in his body. It felt like ages that he hovered in the air, doing little more than resisting the electrical energy shooting through his mind and his limbs. He cried out one more time before his vision went completely black and he felt his body go completely numb, dropping to the ground with a dull thud.

It was an indeterminable amount of time that Steve lay on the ground, ignoring the hard press of the floor beneath him and absorbing everything he had just experienced. He very slightly flexed his jaw to find that even the slightest motion felt muggy and difficult, so he remained still while assessing the feeling of everything in his body.

The slight tingling had returned, which Steve counted as a good thing because it meant he still had feeling in those limbs. But there was also a sort of tingling in his mind, as though he was trying to remember something that had been forgotten. It was in a sudden wave that this information came crashing to him, and he gasped as it forced his mind and his body into action.

“Steve!” Peggy and Bucky were both shouting, and Steve only barely focused on them a few feet away, wearing identical looks of concern. Steve’s gaze fell to Thor next, who was standing over him and was reaching for his shoulder much the same way Steve had done before.

“It appears safe to approach,” Thor said quietly, and Steve’s two teammates were by his side in a heartbeat, looking as though they might start blurting questions any moment.

“What happened?” Steve managed first, trying his best to race through the information he had just gathered.

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Bucky said cautiously, still looking dubious.

“You’ve been unconscious for an hour,” Peggy added, “And Thor said he could sense an energy that your body shouldn’t have been able to sustain.” She tentatively grasped his shoulder although it was difficult to tell if it was for Steve’s benefit or her own.

“An hour?” Steve asked incredulously, rubbing at his head. Considering the thoughts going through his mind, it didn’t seem all that unrealistic but it was still hard to fathom.

“Almost exactly,” Thor confirmed, “Do you know what might have happened to you?”

“I think,” Steve said, very slowly, “That I might have absorbed some information from the beacon.” The more he considered what had just happened, the more it seemed to be the case. Bucky’s face remained dubious, however, so Steve continued. “I’ve got information in my mind right now, running through like memories but I’ve never experienced what I’m imagining. The information is too grand, is too much for me to have come up with it on my own.”

“Then this is information that we must take to the council,” Thor said quickly, “The idea that you might have acquired any knowledge retained from the Kree is vital to our mission, and may be of greater help than the beacon itself.”

Steve nodded in agreement, struggling only a little through blurry limbs to stand.

“Extraction is just minutes out,” Peggy interjected, not looking up from her omni-tool to address them. Steve nodded though she couldn’t see him and flexed his stiff muscles.

“Are you sure you’re okay, buddy?” Bucky asked him again, and Steve could only nod.

“I don’t know what to do with this information. I’ve got -- I have Kree technology swimming in my mind, Buck, not to mention we’ll have to explain what happened here to the Colonel as well as the Council.”

“It is a most grave offense that my brother has committed here,” Thor stated quietly, “And it must be reported to the Council immediately.”

“Surely there’s an explanation for Loki’s behavior,” Steve insisted, although based on the Spectre’s actions that seemed unlikely. Thor seemed to agree, shaking his head sadly and looking to Steve.

“I wish this were the case, but he seems determined to continue this course of action. He must be stopped before he becomes a true liability.”

“Unlike here,” Bucky responded bitterly, gesturing towards the remains of the station and colony. Thor looked ready to respond and Steve opened his mouth to offer a chastisement, but the extraction ship arrived at just the same moment, it’s whirring engines cutting off all possibilities for any sort of conversation. Peggy gave Steve’s shoulder one more squeeze before separating from him, moving to direct the ship towards the best landing space outside the hangar. Thor exchanged one more dark look with Steve before following her, and Bucky followed him immediately after. Steve gave the beacon one last glance and reviewed the information he was certain he had received from it before joining his party.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, it seems as though I struggled through a rewrite of a chapter. I'm hoping to pick this up more easily now that I've dived back into it, my sincerest apologies.


End file.
